Plea to Gurkhas: take the high road and become a crofter

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Gurkhas settling in Britain should be given Highland crofts, according to a retired brigadier who served with the regiment.

John Macfarlane, 69, said that because Gurkhas come from a background of subsistence farming they would thrive on the lifestyle and help to reinvigorate local communities. They would be perfect for some of the nearly 2,000 crofts that had absentee tenants and were lying fallow.

Calling on the Government to look at the idea, Brigadier Macfarlane, from Taynuilt, near Oban, said: “Most of the Gurkhas in the infantry battalions are recruited from the very high mountain villages. They are actually subsistence